The board of administrators of Downtown Music Holdings is exploring a sale of the practically 20-year-old music firm partly as a result of the household of its longtime backer, the late Sir Douglas Myers, is contemplating winding down its stake. However who was Douglas Myers and the way did he get entangled in Downtown?
Earlier than Myers’ funding in what was then often known as Downtown Data helped catapult Gnarls Barkley‘s 2006 hit “Loopy” to No. 2 on the Billboard Scorching 100 and earn the duo a Grammy nomination for document of the 12 months, he was the inheritor of 1 Australasia’s most profitable brewing dynasties.
Myers was a fourth-generation brewer and the descendant of Polish Jewish immigrants to New Zealand. In 1965, he joined the brewing firm that may turn out to be Lion Nathan and ultimately spend round 15 years there as MD, CEO and finally chairman, a put up he ascended to in 1997, in keeping with 2007 biography The Myers by Michael Bassett and Paul Goldsmith. In 1998, Myers offered nearly all of his Lion Nathan share to Japan’s Kirin Brewery Firm.
In retirement, Myers threw himself into philanthropy and a few various investments, together with, at 69, Downtown.
The success of Gnarls Barkley’s led to Douglas attending the 2007 Grammys, the place he noticed the duo, which was composed of Cee Lo Inexperienced and Hazard Mouse, choose up two awards: greatest city/various efficiency for “Loopy” and greatest various music album for St. Elsewhere. In a subsequent interview on the New Zealand TV night information present Sunday, Douglas described feeling starstruck.
“It’s not my factor,” Douglas mentioned, describing the occasion as “wonderful. Lionel Richie was there, Tony Bennet, Sting was there….Beyoncé was there.”
Myers reportedly invested in Downtown due to his son Campbell Myers‘ love of music. Campbell Myers later served as Downtown’s director of enterprise growth for a 12 months from 2009-2010, in keeping with his LinkedIn profile, and extra lately based and served as co-CEO of CreateMe, a San Francisco-based technology-focused clothing manufacturer.
Douglas died in 2017 after an extended battle with most cancers.
